Humans differ. Most read with their eyes, but some read with their fingertips. The majority communicates by speaking and listening, but a minority communi cates by signing. Humans are diverse, and so are our brains. When should neuroscientists accentuate these differences – and when shouldn’t they? Why should individuals, themselves, accept their brain differences? And how can we, as a society, accommodate those brain differences?

WHEN: THU APR 16, 4 pm WHERE: Room 107, Brogden

Flyer for Gernsbacher talk featuring an image of hands in the shape of a brain

Our discussion will focus on the question of how to actualize access in spaces of higher education, including classrooms, and also meetings, conferences, etc. In particular, we’ll think about ways that mental disability and other less-recognized forms of disability might push our thinking about access in higher-ed spaces.

In this talk, Margaret Price advances a theory of “crip space/time,” drawing upon concepts from classical rhetoric, architecture, and design. Arguing that access is a practice, not an event, Price offers findings from her new research on mental disability in higher education, and suggests ways that the practice of access can be implemented more democratically in the everyday spaces of academic life.

The organizers ask that you please refrain from wearing scented products to these events.

If you need an accommodation to attend this event, please contact Elisabeth Miller, Event Coordinator, at 507-884-6634 or elmiller5@wisc.edu. Requests for sign language interpreters, real time captioning, Braille or electronic documents should be made by February 13th. We will attempt to fulfill requests made after this date but cannot guarantee they will be met.

Professor Price’s visit is generously sponsored by the UW Madison Anonymous Fund and as a part of the Disability Activism Workshop sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at UW-Madison with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Manuel Herrero-Puertas, a PhD candidate in English, has written an essay on disability and disability studies for UW’s Center for the Humanities. Manuel’s research examines the intersections between nineteenth-century discourses of disability in the Americas and the corporeal allegories of nation and empire that crop up in the literature of that period. Read it here.